The Evolving Jew

My wife and I went to see the new Star Wars movie yesterday. And while I definitely enjoyed it, I also saw some plot holes that could have interfered with my pleasure. I won't mention those plot holes here, so as not to reveal any spoilers to readers. But what about me? I noticed those plot holes while I was watching the movie itself, and while they couldn't serve as spoilers in the classic sense, since I now know the plot and outcome, they definitely could have acted as spoilers in the sense that had I let them, they could have harmed my viewing pleasure. But they didn't. I noted the issues as they arose, but then tucked them away and just let the narrative carry me along. I didn't let small things destroy a wonderful experience. I immersed myself in the wonder of a modern myth legend of heroes and villains, and the of the epic quest romance adventure that once again, (after the disappointing prequels), represents Star Wars. Over the years, I've co

According to R Alderstein, it's better for a woman to bring her taharat hamishpacha questions to a rabbi rather than a yoetzet . Why? "A yoetzes course of study cannot hold a candle to years (or more!) of immersion in serious learning." R Alderstein doesn't seem to have any idea how rigorous the course of study for yoatzot is. But leaving that aside, he seems to be saying that a yoetzet simply don't have the level of learning neccesary to give an accurate psak. I am absolutely sure that he's not suggesting anything so blatantly sexist as the idea that women don't have the necessary intellectual skills to master the halachot. So it must be that he feels that studying for smicha itself, and the actual conferral of smicha, is what makes one truly qualified to rule on taharat hamishpacha. Therefore, I am left with only one conclusion. Clearly R Alderstein feels that the yoetzet course is insufficient, and that women should be granted smicha so that th

When you think about the plight of the Syrian refugees, remember that we are Jews, and remember this pasuk: כאזרח מכם יהיה לכם הגר הגר אתכם ואהבת לו כמוך כי גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים ויקרא יט:לד

On July 22, 1946, the Irgun bombed the King David hotel in the center of Jerusalem. 91 innocent people were killed. In response, the US declared that they would no longer allow any of the hundreds of thousands of desperate Jewish refugees into the US, because any of them could be terrorists. Except that's not what happened. President Truman realized the deep human crisis of the countless survivors in the DP camps and the many thousands of others fleeing virulent anti-Semitism. So over the next few years, the US raised the quotas higher and higher, allowing homeless and hopeless Jewish refugees homes and hope, a place to rebuild their lives. Will Paris really make us forget the lessons of history and cause us to abandon our compassion? Yes, I know it's not an exact parallel. But the lesson should stand, nonetheless. Punishing desperate refugees who are fleeing murder and hate, because of the actions of a few, is immoral and we, as Jews, should know this better than anyone

It's become an accepted fact among most Orthodox Jews that Obama is "the most anti-Israel president ever" and perhaps even an "anti-Semite" I'm not here to argue whether his policies on Israel are damaging to Israel or not, nor whether the Iran deal was smart. That could be, and has been, argued ad nauseum. What I do want to say is this. Given current trends of increasing international isolation of Israel, it's possible that in the future, say 20 years down the road, the US may very well have a president who is actually anti-Israel, one who cuts off aid to Israel, votes against Israel at the UN, imposes sanctions on Israel, and perhaps even threatens military action. THAT would be what an actual anti-Israel president would look like. Calling Obama anti-Israel is beyond preposterous.

As much as we are all horrified by every terror attack, we aren't shocked by the fact of the attacks. We know those terrorists want to kill Jews. Evil is evil. But I must admit to being shocked by the lynching (yes, that's what it was) of the Eritrean man in Be'er Sheva last night. I'm trying to avoid passing judgement on the lynch mob. After all, they were terrified, they'd just been subject to an attack, and they genuinely thought the man was a terrorist as well. Still, it's horrific that people blocked police access to a man who was already down and yelling "Mavet LaAravim!" beat him, threw benches and chairs at him, kicked him, spat on him and cursed at him. Shouldn't we be better than that mob mentality? Aren't we better than the terrorists? I'm sitting here in the US, safe and sound. As much as I fear for my family and friends, I have't been personally subjected to the existential fear that Israelis are going through day after

Avodah Zara 10a-b discusses the friendship between Antoninus (אנטונינוס), who seems to be the Roman emperor, and Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi. The gemara even describes how Antoninus built a tunnel from his home to R Yehuda Hanasi's home. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that this has at least some historical basis, and look at the attempts to identify Antoninus. The most obvious candidate would be Antoninus Pius, emperor from 138 to 161 CE. Soncino reports that that was the view of someone named "S.J. Rappaport". Does anyone know who that is? Here is the Soncino comment . The gemara also reports that Antoninus had a son named Asvirus and a daughter named Gira. None of the children of Antoninus Pius match those names even closely, at least according to Wikipedia's list of his children , though Gira MIGHT be Annia Galeria Faustina Minor. The Soncino also cites Rappaport's (IMO fanciful) theory about the identity of Asvirus: "Asverus is his adopted so

...is a new group that I started on Facebook a few weeks ago. We have over 350 members already, and we've had some interesting posts and discussions already on the length of a Parsa (Parasang), where is Beit Chortan in Syria, did Jewish men shave in Talmudic times, the climate of ancient Eretz Yisrael, kriya in mourning being a lesser version of tearing of the skin in ancient cultures, Hashem's "subcontracting" of his powers to angels, and the Talmudic perspective on figures like Alexander the Great and the emperor Titus. Join us! https://www.facebook.com/groups/1621873484719511/

According to the traditional viewpoint, you're "supposed" to find a posek and abide by his rulings. But let's be honest. In practice, especially in the internet age, many people shop around for a halachic ruling that they're comfortable with. Is this so terrible? While I'm sure that some shop around just so they can engage in practices that they'll enjoy, I suspect that most do so for practical reasons, because their lives would be much more difficult if they had to rely only on their local rabbi. Especially in the last several decades, when compassionate kulot (leniencies) are much less part of your average Orthodox rabbi's toolkit than they used to be. So people turn to the internet. They don't want to just violate halacha, but they sometimes desperately need a lenient ruling, whether it be for something as benign as a pressing business need or as serious as a sick family member. So they ask people in Jewish discussion groups, or look around at v

The traditional reason given that Hashem allowed the destruction of the second Beit Hamikdash is because of Sinat Chinam, baseless hatred. It might also be translated as pointless hatred. Tisha B'Av, more than any other commemorative day on the Jewish calendar, provides us with a deep dive into Jewish history. We mourn the destruction of two temples and the loss of sovereignty in ancient times. But in the Kinot we recite, we also mourn events like the Rhineland massacres during the first crusade in 1096, the York Massacre in 1190, the burning of the Talmud in Paris in 1242, the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, and the Shoah in the 1940's. All of these events reverberate deeply through subsequent Jewish history, leaving their marks on who we are and what path Judaism followed. We focus on Jewish history during happier commemorations as well, but not nearly as deeply. The old joke, that Jewish holidays have a narrative of "they tried to kill us, we won, let's ea

Let's face it. Left Wing Modern Orthodoxy, Open Orthodoxy, or whatever you want to call it, has much more in common, philosophically and in their general outlook, with heterodox movements than with right wing Orthodoxy. The only thing that binds LWMO/OO with RWO is basic halachic observance, and even the philosophical and practical approaches to halacha differ. And then there's the independent minyan movement, which has a huge contingent of halachically observant folks, not to mention the observant JTS types, who people tend to dub "Conservadox". Beyond the variability of whether there's a mechitza or not, there's hardly any difference at all between LWMO, OO, Independent minyanim, and Conservadox. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of labels, and most of the time I tend to just say that I'm halachically observant and attend an Orthodox shul. Functionally, I guess you could call me LWMO. But given the ubiquity of labels and the fact that they do serv

Food for thought: How much should humane conditions factor into whether something gets a hechsher or not? Can we just go by the letter of the law and ignore the horrors of factory farming? Eggs, for instance. Chickens are stuffed 5 to a cage, barely able to move around for their entire lives. This is basically torture. In my opinion, your conventional supermarket eggs should be treif, given the terrible צער בעלי חיים the chickens are subject to. But I still make compromises, because I'm not going to question hosts on what kinds of eggs they use. Nor do I buy the more expensive pasture raised eggs (the ideal), but settle for the cage-free variety, which are more affordable, and at least I know that the chickens aren't trapped in cages. Where does halacha end and where does ethical eating begin?

The newest wrinkle in the who-is-a-jew question? UK Reform Judaism has now accepted patrilineal descent. With the acrimonious debate in recent years over the Israeli rabbinate's control over conversions and the refusal to acknowledge the Judaism of anybody who doesn't fit their narrowly defined parameters, it's time for a new approach. I've said before that Israel should have several state-sponsored denominational rabbinates, but as optional services only, no coercion. So if there's no rabbinate with the legal authority to decide, how does Israel define someone's Jewishness?It's time to separate "Jewish" into two categories in Israel: Halachically Jewish and Civilly Jewish. Who's a halachic Jew? That's up to the denomination a person subscribes to, and should have no impact on how the state views them. So who's civilly Jewish? Anyone who self-identifies with the Jewish nation and willingly chooses to join our grand millennia

Thoughts on the Iran deal: I think many people already had their minds made up, and the actual details of the deal won't change their minds one way or the other. For instance, Netanyahu, and much of the Israeli public. Bibi wasn't going to like any deal, no matter the details. He made that very clear, very early, and for that reason, I don't feel he has much credibility on the details of the actual deal just signed. As for myself, I don't know enough about the details to judge. I don't have the time to read the entire agreement, nor do I have the expertise to understand all the details. So what I'll end up doing is depend on pundits and commentators I trust and try to glean an informed opinion from them. (Which is what everyone does, mostly.) Ultimately, the question isn't whether this is a good deal. No deal signed with Iran would be strictly "good". The question is, is this deal better than having no deal at all? That's where the deta

With all this talk of whether Open Orthodox is "in" or "out" of Orthodoxy, I wonder how many people actually identify as Open Orthodox, aside from the students, graduates, and hanhala of Chovevei Torah? I can only speak for myself, but while I tend towards the far left of Orthodoxy, and deeply identify with many of the attitudes of OO, I don't actually use that label to define myself. I suspect that many of my like-thinking friends are like me - we don't feel the need to be pinned down by a label. As a layman who does not work in the Orthodox world, I don't have to identify myself for professional reasons. I'm simply a Jew who attends an Orthodox shul and keeps normative traditional halacha in my everyday life. Beyond that, there's no reason to put myself into any sort of box. I can pick and choose elements of hashkafa that resonate with me from wherever they come. If I were in a box that is officially labeled "Orthodox", then I w

Note: I just found this post in my blog's "drafts" folder, where I had composed it in 2008. It was really a collection of comments of mine from some other blog posts thrown together. I decided to edit it now to add some flow, and publish, but if it still comes across as slightly disjointed, that origin is the reason. ------------------------------------------------ The madness of the current conversion process in Israel is staggering. However, it is important not to misrepresent the views of the Charedi Rabbanut. When the Chazon Ish ruled that it is appropriate to trust Jews who state their identity as such, there weren't large numbers of potential olim who came from mixed marriages where the mother converted under Reform auspices. There are now. These children are raised Jewish, but do not practice halacha. By traditional halachic standards, they are not Jewish. yet they come to Israel & claim to be. The Rabbanut, now under Charedi control, is desperate

A comment of mine on a Facebook discussion today regarding techelet in one's tztitzit, which has been reinstituted by many after 2,000 years based on the claimed rediscovery of the source of techelet, a certain kind of snail: I thought about doing it. But there's still plenty of dispute over whether what they have today is really the biblical techelet. And as someone who sees Judaism as an evolved religion (because really, what we practice today only superficially resembles what they practiced during Bayit Sheni), I've decided it's not a priority to go back to something that might be what they did 2,000 years ago. My grandfather and his grandfather, and his grandfather and HIS grandfather all wore tzitzit without techelet, and that's good enough for me too.

I celebrated Friday's Supreme Court decision. And I agree with the logic espoused my many of my fellow Orthodox Jews that despite what the Torah says, we have no right to foist a religious definition of marriage on a secular public. That's a handy and quick argument. An argument that goes even further is that even in marriages between 2 Jews of the same sex, the only thing forbidden by the Torah is anal sex between two men, and who are we to assume what goes on behind closed doors? But to be honest, it goes far beyond that for me. I'm not just simply dividing up my religious beliefs and my political beliefs. I would not hesitate to dance at a same-sex wedding of Jewish friends with wholehearted joy. Because when it comes right down to it, while the Torah says "toevah hee", I don't agree with the plain meaning of what the Torah says. I don't wrestle with how to reconcile my religious beliefs with my own personal morality, because, frankly, my religio

Yeshivas Torah Bli Derech Eretz is a Charedi school in Israel that has decided to start teaching science & history to their students! Of course, it wouldn't do to teach the shmutz that goyim consider to be science and history. Only Torah True science and history will be taught. Here are some of the courses being developed for the curriculum: Entomology 101: In introductory look at the mechanism of spontaneous generation Advanced Surgical Techniques: An in depth study of the drawings of the Chazon Ish Ancient Babylonian History: How all the Jewish men in Bavel sat in Yeshiva and learned all day Medieval European History: How all the Jewish men in Europe sat in Yeshiva and learned all day Recent European History: How all the Jewish men in Europe sat in Yeshiva and learned all day while wearing black hats Gender Psychology 103: An in depth study of the ways that the female brain is built for nurturing and not for advanced study of texts. If anyone would like to co

I know this is from September , but I had a thought I wanted to share. “I see vaccinations as the problem,” Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky told the Baltimore Jewish Times in a story published in late August. “It’s a hoax. Even the Salk [polio] vaccine is a hoax. It’s just big business.” Kamenetzky argued that schools should not exclude unvaccinated students, as they currently do under public health laws. He also claimed that school janitors would be spreading disease if vaccines worked. “They are mostly Mexican and are unvaccinated,” the rabbi said. “If there was a problem, the children would already have gotten sick.” This is the inevitable result of taking the idea of "Da'as Torah" way too far. Men like R Kamenetzky have no expertise whatsoever outside of their deep Torah knowledge and their piety. And they live fairly cloistered lives, so are unaware of responsible literature on science, medicine, and many other fields. But when your followers believe that being a

Kashrut.org is a long-standing site belonging to R Yitzchak Abadi and his sons. The site has an extensive Q&A section about kashrut with many unusual answers, which indicate that in many cases hechsherim aren't necessary, and that that one can be "kosher by ingredients", so to speak. For example, this answer that allows eating certain sandwiches at Subway . Unsurprisingly, the site is somewhat controversial, but I know people who depend on it. (Leaving aside the kashrut issues themselves, I personally have issues with the site because of the one or two word answers often given that can lend themselves to ambiguousness.) There's one reader comment on the site from 2003 that has a bit of cult status. That comment , which attempted to explain the rationale of the Abadis' stance, is by Dr Marc Shapiro, of Seform Blog fame, and author of books like "The Limits of Orthodox Theology" and the just released "Changing the Immutable". I won&

Pet peeve: When the Yeshivish community declares that we did this or we didn't do that "in Europe". As if "Europe" was one small shtetl populated by frum Jews with long beards. Europe is a large continent with many countries. And Jews there came in many different stripes. Jews lived in Europe for well over 1000 years. When people talk about how things were done in Europe, what era and region are they referring to? They probably have a vague notion that's based on a romanticized version of some shtetl in Poland in the 1890's. That's not "Europe". That's just one small place at a particular moment in time. This isn't' just semantics. It promotes ignorance about the beautiful and rich tapestry of a Judaism that spanned centuries and had many different practices across many different lands.

VOTE TORAH! There's only one more day to vote in the World Zionist Congress elections , and that's the message many of us have been bombarded with over the last couple of months, urging us to support the Orthodox party . But are Orthodox values in Israel in danger? Is Torah study and education at risk of disappearing? Is there some public impediment to Shabbat observance? Is it difficult to get kosher food there? If anything, Israel suffers from far too much religion in the public sphere. And it not only offends the secular public, but it harms religion as well. It adulterates the beauty and holiness of a religious lifestyle with ugliness and politics. Yes, I'm an Orthodox affiliated Shabbat observant Jew. And I care about the future of Israel and about the future of religion there. That's why I would never vote for a slate whose stated goal is to advance only one exclusivist vision of Judaism, in Israel and around the globe. A slate who would work to maintain

Kitniyot Minimization Project ™  update: Last year we added raw peanuts and KFP for sephardim peanut butter. The 2 additions to our household this year will be: Wild rice, the North American variety, unknown in Europe at the time of the introduction of the minhag. The commonly sold variety is Northern Wild Rice (zizania palustris), native to the Great Lakes region of North America. It's unrelated to other rice, and is not really a "rice" at all. The only slight similarity is the shape. Early French explorers called it Folles Avoines (crazy oats). Other explorers called it a rice, not only because of the shape, but because they saw the plants rising above waters of the great lakes region, reminding them of rice paddies.   Green (string) beans. While they may be called "beans", and are, indeed, in the legume family, no one considered them kitniyot until the mid-20th century. While there are some unclear sources that go back further, there are none before

I'm hesitant to write this, because it'll invite my right-wing friends to pour their scorn of Obama on this thread. But I've been surprised by his behavior the last few days and feel the need to write this out. I've never had cause to complain about Obama's treatment of Israel. His administration always had Israel's back, diplomatically, and with military aid. And I appreciated the fact that the childish behavior and tantrums of Netanyahu have always been met by the patience of the adult in the room, Obama. However, while I can certainly understand Obama's frustration with Netanyahu's antics, (which I share), for the first time, it feels like Obama's abandoned that role as the adult. Yes, Netanyahu's said some stupid things. But he's also backtracked since the election. Why this peculiar insistence by the White House that "Nuh, uh! You said it! Can't take it back now!". Politics has always consisted of posturing and

The president hated Bibi so much he interfered with the Israeli election and all but campaigned openly for the Labor candidate. He sent advisors to Israel to help Labor's campaign. Yup, it was 1999, and relations with Netanyahu and the Clinton administration were at a low point. Clinton made his distaste for Bibi clear and wanted him out of office. A couple of differences between then and now. Clinton succeeded, and Ehud Barak defeated Netanyahu. Clinton actually interefered. Obama in 2015 did very little compared to Clinton's efforts in 1999. What's the common thread? Bibi. So do you still think Obama "hates Israel" and is an "anti-Semite"? In that case, you have to say the same about Clinton. Or maybe, just maybe, the problem lies with Bibi, the guy who seems to go out of his way to antagonize multiple US presidents.

I's almost Pesach time, and as usual there's been a lot of ink spilled on whether keeping the minhag of kitniyot still makes any sense. I have no objection to anyone giving up the prohibition of kitniyot. But my personal approach is that Halacha is an evolving system, and within that approach, the prohibition of kitniyot on Pesach is meaningful to me the same way all halacha is meaningful to me. Once you get beyond d'orayta, is there really such a difference between rules that were created 1,700 years ago and rules, like kitniyot, that are "only" around 700 years old? That's old enough for it to have become embedded deeply into Ashkenazi Jewish life, and to become something kept by generations of my ancestors, alongside shabbat, kashrut, etc. So I'm not ready to just jettison it. Here's the caveat, though. My stomach isn't nearly as hardy as it was when I was younger. I had a hard time last Pesach. As much as I keep telling myself I'll

I was reading a few articles on the Khazar hypothesis and had a couple of thoughts: It's interesting how the popularity of myths wax and wane depending on their contemporary ramifications. When I was a kid, the idea that there was an early medieval kingdom that converted entirely to Judaism was something that was embraced by the Orthodox Jewish community. It was empowering, exciting, and something to be proud of. However, that's changed in recent years. Given that Shlomo Sand and others have used the legend as the basis of their theories that most of Ashkenazic Jewry is descended from the Khazars, and not of ancient Judeans, it's become highly politicized. Now it's become much more fashionable in the Orthodox Jewish community to reject the conversion as a myth, to avoid giving ammunition to those who would undermine the Jewish claim to Israel. I suspect that the myth would have stayed that way, a myth, along with many other medieval myths, had R Yehuda Ha